ot
have told the gipsy (if one existed) anything important; for the special
destination of the voyage (as was the custom in those times, for fear of
Jesuits playing into the hands of Spain) had been carefully kept secret
among the adventurers themselves, and, except Yeo and Drew, none of the
men had any suspicion that La Guayra was to be their aim.

And Salvation Yeo?

Salvation was almost wild for a few days, at the sudden prospect of
going in search of his little maid, and of fighting Spaniards once more
before he died. I will not quote the texts out of Isaiah and the Psalms
with which his mouth was filled from morning to night, for fear of
seeming irreverent in the eyes of a generation which does not believe,
as Yeo believed, that fighting the Spaniards was as really fighting in
God's battle against evil as were the wars of Joshua or David. But the
old man had his practical hint too, and entreated to be sent back to
Plymouth to look for men.

"There's many a man of the old Pelican, sir, and of Captain Hawkins's
Minion that knows the Indies as well as I, and longs to be back again.
There's Drew, sir, that we left behind (and no better sailing-master for
us in the West-country, and has accounts against the Spaniards, too; for
it was his brother, the Barnstaple man, that was factor aboard of poor
Mr. Andrew Barker, and got clapt into the Inquisition at the Canaries);
you promised him, sir, that night he stood by you on board the Raleigh:
and if you'll be as good as your word, he'll be as good as his; and
bring a score more brave fellows with him."

So off went Yeo to Plymouth, and returned with Drew and a score of old
never-strikes. One look at their visages, as Yeo proudly ushered them
into the Ship Tavern, showed Amyas that they were of the metal which he
wanted, and that, with the four North-Devon men who had gone round the
world with him in the Pelican (who all joined in the first week), he had
a reserve-force on which he could depend in utter need; and that utter
need might come he knew as well as any.

Nor was this all which Yeo had brought; for he had with him a letter
from Sir Francis Drake, full of regrets that he had not seen "his dear
lad" as he went through Plymouth. "But indeed I was up to Dartmoor,
surveying with cross-staff and chain, over my knees in bog for a three
weeks or more. For I have a project to bring down a leat of fair water
from the hill-tops right into Plymouth town, cutting off the hea